"The first commercial supplies of 70,000 tonnes of high-quality coal are being loaded in the port and are ready to be sent to Japan," Tsivilev said.

At the EEF, the company has formed a pool of consumers of its products. "They are Japan, South Korea, China, and Vietnam, India and Russia’s metallurgical companies have also shown interest in our products. Some 20% of metallurgical coal will go to the country’s domestic market while the rest will be for export," he said.

To increase the volume of transshipments of coal for export, the company is building infrastructure facilities of a special marine terminal within the Vanino sea port in the Khabarovsk region, in the Far East. The project will be implemented in two stages: by 2019 a terminal for coal transshipments will be constructed with the annual capacity of 12 million tonnes, and during the second stage (by 2021) the capacity will be increased to 24 million tonnes.

The project is estimated at 35 billion rubles ($537 million), with 30% of the funds allocated by the company itself.